QUESTION 1: In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Teaser Trailer


As demonstrated in our previous posts, we have deconstructed teaser trailers from our chosen genre - Supernatural Horror - to identify codes and conventions used for a professional and successful trailer, such as 'Orphan' and 'Grudge'.

Our narrative constantly changed throughout the beginning of our coursework production. We had to improve certain aspects such as our chosen characters, locations and main plot to make our narrative look believable. We finally chose a sub-genre 'Super-natural' and drew inspiration from 'Grudge', particularly with Mise en Scene.

We used typical codes and conventions for our Villain's makeup and costuming. We painted her face a dull white/grey colour representing her as ghostly and unnatural and highlighted her facial features using dark colours, black and green. We experimented with different products in her hair to try and demonstrate a greasy and unkempt look. This character was to create fear among an audience and play on the idea of the 'undead'.

To make a successful teaser trailer we had to research the differences between a theatrical trailer and a teaser. We found that the less narrative shown the more effective the teaser trailer is. After deconstructing teaser trailers from the Horror genre, we found that they use very fast transitions and a parallel soundtrack to create a climax. We needed to present footage that would play on the audience's fears, create intrigue and persuade the audience to see the film.


We intentionally presented Gothic colours - red, white and black - throughout our trailer. Transitions, such as straight cut to black created a dramatic effect and black has typical conventions such as death, darkness, evil, and fear. It is a typical code of a horror film. At the beginning of our trailer, we used fade in and out to black which was inspired by 'Grudge'. These slow transitions were used to create equilibrium from the idea of Todorov's theory, this made it easier for us to gradually build a climax and create disequilibrium.


Anchorage was used continually through the trailer, we keep it consistent by using the same font, size and colour. The language used was to create intrigue and suspense before chaos was created. We found that 'Grudge' used anchorage before disequilibrium was created and we were inspired by this technique.

For our narrative we wanted to challenge the typical gender stereotypes of men and women. We subverted the role of men being more powerful and dominant and cast a female as the villain. Her costuming challenged other villains from real media products because her white dress has immediate connotations of innocence and vulnerability. This idea was inspired by 'Orphan'. We originally wanted to present a child as the villain in our teaser trailer, however this proved difficult because we were unable to cast such a young character who would be able to act as well as we wanted.
We were able to develop these gender stereotypes by using two female characters as binary oppositions, rather than the typical male versus female scenario. Even though our trailer does not demonstrate this, our initial idea was to have these two characters from the same family. This helped us with location ideas (using the home) and we were then able to subvert the connotations of a safe, family orientated home and play on the audience's fears even more.


Todorov's theory was also developed through our teaser trailer. Our trailer began with slow transitions and non-diegetic soundtrack - which was calm yet eerie - creating equilibrium. A climax was then created by increasing the pace of shots and overlapping a faster and tension building non-diegetic soundtrack - this was our disequilibrium. This chaos did not gradually decrease into a state on equilibrium for the end, it finished suddenly after a diegetic scream - used to frighten the audience - anchorage was then used over a black screen while our first soundtrack faded in. After revealing the date the film would be released a sudden increase of a sound clip was used combined with a quick shot of our main character 'roaring' into the camera, directly at the audience. The trailer finishes on the clip, so we were ale to end on disequilibrium and use it as another persuasive technique.




Poster

For our ancillary tasks we kept continuity by using the same Gothic colouring throughout, red back and white. Firstly we needed some professional photography of our main character - depending on which character we chose to display - this proved very difficult as we had a limited allowance, so we skillfully edited our photographs to make them look more professional. We photographed our actress in the dark using an artificial spotlight to highlight her facial features and makeup.

We analysed different film posters from the horror genre to gain inspiration, firstly looking at 'Grudge'. This poster used the same colouring we had already demonstrated in our teaser trailer. The main focus of their poster is the villain in the 'Golden Section'. We used the same idea and photographed our character looking directly into the camera - and therefore at the audience - to try and create intimidation, her head is tilted to one side which makes her look more menacing and threatening. We enlarged the image of our character face as much as possible and deliberitely positioned it to the left side of the poster.

The 'Grudge' Poster displays the film's name horizontal to the character's eye with the tag line at the bottom of the poster. We found that in our other poster analysis's that tag lines were deliberately positioned away from the film's title. We wanted to challenge this particular convention and place the tag line beneath the 'Vendetta'. We used a small font so their audience would have to focus and pay more attention to read it. The tag line's font was white and the same font we had used for anchorage throughout our teaser trailer, as we wanted to keep continuity.

Website

After analysing websites for different films of the Horror genre, we found that the majority displayed their trailer on the homepage. We wanted to challenge conventions of real media products and designed our hompage without our teaser trailer, however we included easily accessible links to view it.

We kept continuity throughout the anciliary tasks by using the same gothic colouring to our teaser trailer and poster, as it was a typical convention on a horror film. The links displayed are the same font used for our anchorage and tagline. We used inspiration form 'The Ring' homepage. When the users hover over a link, it becomes animated. We used the same technique and used a red glow on our titles when they are highlighted.

We created social networking sights for our film, including Fcaebook, Twitter and Youtube, which helped create convergence. The links have been activated, and they are also highlighted when the user hovers over the icons.